Participating countries Countries that participated in the past but not in 1963

Vote

Voting system

Each country had 20 jury members who awarded their five favourite songs 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 points in order. All those points would then be added up and the five song with the most points got 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 votes in order.

The Eurovision Song Contest 1963 was the eighth annual Eurovision Song Contest. The contest was held in London, United Kingdom, after the British broadcaster BBC stepped in to organise the event. France had won the 1962 edition with the right to host this following one but were unable to, due to financial shortcomings.

The contest was won by Denmark with the song "Dansevise", performed by Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann. Denmark's win was their first. Four countries got nil points, with Finland, Norway and Sweden failing to score any points for the first time and The Netherlands for the second time, becoming the first country to go two years in a row without scoring a single point.[2]

BBC Television Centre, London. Host venue of the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest.

Located on the River Thames, London is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the Europe by most measures. London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans, who named it Londinium.[3] The BBC was willing to host the contest instead of the previous year's winner France, as was the case in 1960, 1972 and 1974 with previous winning broadcasters that could not afford to organise a contest.

The host venue was the BBC Television Centre, White City, London, which opened in 1960. It is one of the most readily recognisable facilities of its type having appeared as the backdrop for many BBC programmes. It remained to be one of the largest such facilities in the world until it closed in March 2013.[4]

Two studios (TC3 and TC4) were used: one for the mistress of ceremonies Katie Boyle, the audience, and the scoreboard; the other for the performers and the orchestra accompanying them. Unusually, a boom microphone (normally used for drama and comedy shows) was employed - the viewer doesn't see this, so it appears as if the artists were miming to their vocals. This was not the case, but this innovation was to create a new look for the contest.[2]

One controversy this year was during the voting. When it was Norway's turn to announce their votes, the spokesman in Oslo did not use the correct procedure in that the song number, followed by the name of the country, should have been announced before awarding the points. Katie Boyle asked Norway to repeat their results, but the Norwegian spokesman asked Katie to return to them after all the other results were in. When Katie went back to Norway again the votes had mysteriously altered, thus changing the outcome of the contest and giving the victory to Norway's neighbours Denmark at Switzerland's expense. In fact, there was some doubt as to whether the Norwegian spokesman gave the correct votes on the first occasion.

It has also been speculated as to whether the juries were indeed on the end of a telephone line or in the actual studio given how clearly their voices could be heard as opposed to sounding as though they were being redirected through a telephone line. It is also been stated that Luxembourg came sixth in the Monaco voting as Monaco give one point to both the United Kingdom and Luxembourg. However when Katie Boyle went back to Monaco to receive the votes again Monaco's one vote to Luxembourg was efficiently discarded.[2]

All countries which participated in the 1961 and 1962 contests, returned for a third consecutive year, with no new countries making a début, nor any returning or withdrawing nations this particular year.

Each country had 20 jury members who awarded their five favourite songs 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 points in order. All those points would then be added up and the five song with the most points got 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 votes in order.

The table below shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1963 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the broadcasting station for which they represented are also included in the table below.